What's Happening

June 1, 2017, Adrian, Michigan – The General Council of the Adrian Dominican Sisters issued the following statement in response to President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.

President Trump’s decision today to pull the United States out of the historic Paris Climate Agreement is politically, economically, and morally indefensible.

It diminishes our standing as a world leader, aligning us with Syria and Nicaragua as the only non-signatories to the landmark accord signed in December 2015 by 195 nations. It blunts our competitive edge in an emerging renewable-energy based global economy. And it threatens to condemn Earth, our common home, and future generations to potentially catastrophic climate change.

We Adrian Dominican Sisters intend to redouble our efforts, in union with concerned people around the world, to help create the “new and universal solidarity” that Pope Francis calls for in his encyclical, Laudato Si, and “cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation.” (14)

March 28, 2017, Adrian, Michigan – The General Council of the Adrian Dominican Sisters issued the following statement in response to President Donald Trump’s March 28, 2017, Executive Order to roll back the Clean Power Plan. 

Statement of Adrian Dominican Sisters on March 28, 2017 Executive Order

President Trump’s Executive Order rolling back the nation’s Clean Power Plan sends a dangerous signal to the rest of the world that the United States is reneging on its pledge to cut carbon emissions by 26 percent by 2025, putting the historic Paris agreement – and the wellbeing of people and planet – in jeopardy.

It will not put all coal miners to work; most mining is increasingly mechanized. It will give a green light to planet-warming carbon pollution, threatening to relegate our children to an irreversible future of extreme weather events, droughts, floods, and untold billions in costs to adapt to these harmful impacts. And it will increase threats to endangered species and vulnerable ecosystems.

As Pope Francis wrote in Laudato Si, “Intergenerational solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice, since the world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us.”

True energy independence can only be secured through a clean, renewable-energy based economy. To that end, the Adrian Dominican Sisters recently made a commitment to “sacrifice to mitigate significantly our impact on climate change and ecological degradation.” The commitment was made in recognition of the “violence against Earth community that places our common home in dire jeopardy and intensifies the suffering of people on the margins, future generations and all creation.”